Sponsored Mentors

In the sponsored mentors program, SEEDS sponsors a mentoring event with speakers that others have invited to give research seminars, who has an interest and credentials in career development issues. The budget for this program is modest, able to supply some refreshments before, during or after an event. The chosen mentor is particularly welcome to give a formal presentation, but some more informal sessions with directed discussion could also be appropriate. If you are hosting a seminar speaker who may be appropriate for this program, contact the SEEDS Director, Kathryn Tosney, for details and authorization.

 

New events (also see SEEDS calendar)

SEEDS CO-Sponsored Distinguished Scholar Dr. Barbara Liskov from MIT, member of the National Academy of Engineering, will speak at 3:30 on November 9 in about "Security of Internet Storage." Her seminar will be followed by a mentoring "high tea": all junior faculty are welcome.

 

Reports on past events

SEEDS sponsored a mentoring event with the Annual Gifford Arboretum Lecturer, Dr. Lúcia Lohmann from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil, who leddiscussion on Building Leadership in Plant Conservation. The attendees included faculty, graduate students and community leaders in plant conservation.

SEEDS sponsored a mentoring event of two dozen junior and senior faculty with the Mary Bartlett Bunge Distinguished Women in Cell Biology Lecturer, Susan Lindquist, at Sandy Lemmon's home on Tuesday March 24, 2009. After dinner, Dr. Linquist answered career questions supplied by junior faculty that included:

• What is the best life balance for you for a successful scientific carreer? What are some tips to being a working mom and having happy children?
• How do you balance administrative and research responsibilties?
• As women faculty, should we be hard on our female graduate students?
  
• How do you say NO to committee service?
• What do you think of providing an intermediate faculty position between a postdoc and assistant professor for women who want to slow down when they have young children?
• In what way should we approach work in the biological sciences today, to be better prepared to suceed as biologists tomorrow?
  
  

  Susan Lindquist, Center	Mary Bunge, left
  Audience	Mary Lou King introducing Dr. Lindquist

  
  
  

SEEDS Sponsored Mentoring Event entitled "Yes We Can! A Woman’s Perspective on a Life in Science" given by the Mary Bartlett Bunge Distinguished Women in Cell Biology Lecturer, Susan L. Lindquist, March 24 at 4 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. Dr. Lindquist is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Lindquist presented her research seminar titled "Protein folding mechanisms propelling rapid evolutionary change" on Tuesday, March 24, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium.

SEEDS Sponsored Mentoring Event with Dr. Kate Barald, the University of Michigan, who described Tips to Mentors for writing NIH Postdoc applications during a 2.5 hour workshop, RMSB 6018, March 5, 3:30 - 5:00. Co-Sponsored by the Miller Graduate School.

SEEDS Sponsored Mentor Dr. Meg Lohman, Director of Environmental Studies, New College of Florida, and author of Life in the Treetops and It's a Jungle Up There" as well as five other books and more than one hundred journal articles led a group discussion of gender and mentoring issues in academic science with a diverse group including people in high school through tenured faculty. Co-sponsored by the Biology Department.